Cougars' title hopes slip away

Friday

Feb 20, 2009 at 5:03 AM

By MATT STRAYER

T-G Sports Writer

PLYMOUTH " Danger lurks around every corner when you're the top team in the Firelands Conference and the team you're playing has nothing to lose.

The Crestview girls basketball team learned that the hard way Thursday night in a 70-61 loss at Plymouth, and it cost the Cougars (17-3, 12-2) a share of a second straight and fifth overall FC title in their final regular season game.

"It was there and it was something I know these kids wanted," CHS coach Tracy Richards said. "I feel bad, obviously, for the seniors. They've got an incredible record over their four years and would have loved to send them out on that note, but we didn't get it done tonight.

"Obviously give Plymouth credit. They didn't have a conference to play for, but obviously guarded their home territory and knocked us out from picking up something. That's what rivalries are about."

With Western Reserve and Crestview tied atop of the FC standings before Thursday, the Cougars needed a win to secure at least a share of the league title. The loss put it out of their hands.

With the Roughriders' 42-39 win over Mapleton on Thursday, Crestview's hopes of slicing off a piece of the pie were cut off.

Conversely, the Big Red (12-8, 9-5) had already locked up third place in the FC. Its focus simply was preparing for the postseason tournament.

"We didn't really want to look at is as spoilers," Plymouth coach Scott Speicher said. "We just wanted to come in and play great basketball before the tournament. We weren't real concerned with these last four games about wins and losses. ... However it broke, it broke. We had third place in the conference locked up. We couldn't go any higher or any lower. We just wanted to come in and play great basketball at the right time of the year."

It broke alright " in the form of a snapped 10-game win streak for the Cougars, and in the form of 13-point Big Red leads midway through the second and fourth quarters.

Crestview, as always, was streaky. The Cougars hit only 32 percent (25-of-76) of their field goal attempts and were 5-of-22 from the perimeter, but Plymouth never could breathe a sigh of relief until it was all said and done.

More than once the Big Red took a sizeable lead only to have Crestview threaten with some dangerous maneuvers of its own.

Trailing 52-39 with 6 minutes, 46 seconds left in the game, the Cougars ripped off an 11-2 run to cut their deficit to just four points a little more than a minute later. That run was fueled by three fastbreak buckets and five points on consecutive trips down the floor from Alicia Metzger.

Metzger scored 12 of her game-high 23 points in the Cougars' 25-point fourth quarter. Before that, Crestview managed no more than 15 points in any of the other three stanzas.

The Big Red, which was led by 22 points and nine rebounds from Bre McVey, pulled away from there and sank 10-of-14 free throws in the fourth quarter to preserve the win.

"We got down early and came out flat," Richards said. "They made the runs. Like I said before, we're streaky and we made some streaks, but unfortunately we couldn't get it over the hump. Every time it seemed like we were maybe going to push it to that, they got a big play and knocked down a shot and kind of moved the margin back up on us."

After falling behind by nine points at the midpoint of the final period, the Cougars ran out of gas. They got it back to six on a trey from Morgan Walter (12 points), but were unable to rally down the stretch.

"Anytime we lose, the loss is on me," Richards said. "Obviously there's something I didn't do to put them in position to be successful. As far as I'm concerned, they're 17-0, I'm 0-3. I'll have to do something better to get us ready for New London next Wednesday."

"The nice part is, it's not over," he added. "(We're) not done. There's still bigger things to move on and try and accomplish for the year."

Note: Plymouth swept on its home court, winning the junior varsity game, 64-38. Carey Fulk led Crestview with 10 points.